Joana Vasconcelos - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Joana Vasconcelos was born in Paris and lives and works in Lisbon. Her participation in the 2005 edition of the Venice Bienale has affirmed her career within the international art circuit. Moments such as her presence in Japan’s Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, in 2006; “Contaminação”, an exhibition presented in 2008, at Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, in Brazil; or the important group exhibition Un Certain Etat du Monde? A Selection of Works From François Pinault Foundation Collection, presented in 2009 at the Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, led to a notable international artistic career. “Sem Rede (Netless)”, the grand retrospective presented in 2010, at Museu Colecção Berardo, was a huge success with the public, becoming the most visited exhibition in Portugal.

In June 2011, the installation “Contaminação” opened the group exhibition The World Belongs to You, held at Palazzo Grassi. In 2012, Joana Vasconcelos will show her work at the major anual contemporary art exhibition in the Palace of Versailles, thus continuing the contemporary art programme initiated in 2008. Following in the footsteps of American artist Jeff Koons, the French Xavier Veilhan and Bernar Venet, and the Japanese Takashi Murakami, Joana Vasconcelos will be the first woman and the youngest contemporary artist to exhibit in Versailles.

Work

Joana Vasconcelos appropriates, decontextualises and subverts pre-existent objects and everyday realities. Her sculptures and installations, as well as performances and video or photographic records,reveal an acute sense of scale and mastery of colour, while combining in the materialization of concepts that challenge the prearranged routines of daily life. Vasconcelos' ingenious operations of displacement, a reminiscence of the Ready-made, Nouveau Réalisme and Pop, provide a vision that is simultaneously complicit and critical of contemporary society and the notions of collective identity, especially those related to the status of women, class distinction or national identity. This process originates a discourse around contemporary idiosyncrasies, where the dichotomies of hand-crafted/industrial, private/public, tradition/modernity and popular culture/erudite culture are imbued with affinities that are apt to renovate contemporaneity's usual fluxes of signification.

Public art

The site-specific interventions in the public art domain are particularly relevant in the artist’s body of work. Some of Joana Vasconcelos’ most important public art interventions are: Portugal a Banhos, Doca de Santo Amaro, Lisbon (2010); La Théière, Le Royal Monceau, Paris (2010); Sr. Vinho, Mercado Municipal de Torres Vedras, Torres Vedras (2010); Jardim Bordallo Pinheiro, Jardim do Museu da Cidade, Lisbon (2009); Vitrine, Rua do Alecrim, nº12, Lisbon (2008); Varina, Ponte D. Luís I, Porto (2008); A Jóia do Tejo, Torre de Belém, Lisbon (2008).

Selected works

Flores do Meu Desejo [Flowers of My Desire], 1996
Sofá Aspirina, 1997
Cama Valium [Valium Bed], 1998
Spot Me, 1999
Ponto de Encontro [Meeting Point], 2000
Strangers in the Night, 2000
A Noiva [The Bride], 2001–2005
O Mundo a Seus Pés [The World at Your Feet], 2001
Pantelmina #1, 2001
Barco da Mariquinhas [Mariquinhas’ Boat], 2002
Burka, 2002
WWW.Fatimashop, 2002
Una Dirección [One Way], 2003
Coração Independente Dourado [Golden Independent Heart], , 2004
Passerelle, 2005
Néctar, 2006
Big Booby, 2007
Donzela [Maiden], 2007
Jardim do Éden [Garden of Eden], 2007
Contaminação [Contamination], 2008–2010
A Jóia do Tejo [The Jewel of the Tagus], 2008
Piano Dentelle, 2008
Marilyn, 2009
Valquíria Enxoval [Valkyrie Trousseau], 2009
Portugal a Banhos, 2010
Sr. Vinho [Mr. Wine], 2010
La Théière, 2010
Loft, 2010
Mary Poppins, 2010
Sugar Baby, 2010
Tutti Frutti, 2011
War Games, 2011

Exhibitions

2011: Magic Kingdom, Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense; The World Belongs to You, Palazzo Grassi, Venice; Res Publica, Centenário da República, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon
2010: I Will Survive, Haunch of Venison, London; Sem Rede, Museu Colecção Berardo, Lisbon.
2009: Un Certain État du Monde? A Selection of Works From François Pinault Foundation Collection, Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, Moscovo; À la Mode de Chez Nous: Júlio Pomar et Joana Vasconcelos, Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris; Mi Vida – Heaven and Hell – The Musac Collection in Budapest, Mücsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest
2008: Contaminação, Projecto Octógono de Arte Contemporânea, Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo; Où le Noir Est Couleur, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris; L’Argent, Le Plateau, Paris
2007: Joana Vasconcelos, The New Art Gallery, Walsall; Yellow Brick Road, Palazzo Nani Bernardo Lucheschi, Venice; A Ilha dos Amores, Galeria Mario Mauroner, Vienna
2006: Espais Oberts, Caixa Fórum, Fundación La Caixa, Barcelona; Venice – Istanbul, Istanbul Modern,Istanbul; Echigo Tsumari Triennial, Tokamachi.
2005: Always a Little Further – La Bienalle di Venezia, Arsenale, Venice; L’Idiotie - Expérience Pommery #2, Pommery, Reims

Press

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